Can a Small Business use Social Media?
By Matt McGee on Mar 29, 2007 in Social Media
That’s the question I’ve attempted to address in my latest “Small is Beautiful” column for Search Engine Land:
Social Media Marketing for Small Business
The issue, as always, is how much time/money does the small business need to invest and what does it get in return. So, for a great many small biz owners, chasing a front page link on Digg is a pointless pursuit. It’ll either take up way too much time, or it’ll cost too much money. Here are the social media marketing options I think are more realistic for a small business:
1a. Start a blog.
1b. Comment on other blogs.
2. Get active at Yahoo Answers.
3. Make and share videos.
4. Take and share photos.
5. Try StumbleUpon.
6. Join groups & mailing lists.
What social media marketing have you tried? Did it work?
[tags]social media, small business, marketing[/tags]
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2 Comment(s)
By malpern on Mar 29, 2007 | Reply
Matt, thanks for the interesting article and shout out about Yahoo! Answers. I’m the design lead for the product and wanted to mention one other useful point. We recently introduced the Answers Network, which lets you build up a list of contacts/fans within the product. This is not only a great way to connect with smart and helpful people, but to identify and build relationships with possible leads.
Matt, if you or any of your readings are interested in giving it a try add me as a contact. My public profile is here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=Au2ZIv0KF3B73wFzOO_4Et3sy6IX
Just click “Add contact” under my name.
Thanks!
Micah
By Matt McGee on Mar 29, 2007 | Reply
Hey Micah – thanks for stopping by. You guys have done a great job on Answers, and the big traffic increases of the past year are proof of success. I’ve returned the favor and added you as a contact in my Answers account. You might be interested to read this post from a couple weeks ago, too:
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/2007/03/10/why-i-love-yahoo-answers/
Stop by anytime, always glad to hear from the people involved in the service.